Rehanne Skinner said that she was disappointed that West Ham United women's team came away with nothing from their 3-2 defeat to Aston Villa on Sunday afternoon.
Former Hammer, Rachel Daly scored the eventual winner in the 92nd minute of a contest in which the Hammers had dominated for large spells.
Viviane Asseyi opened the scoring from the penalty spot after another former Hammer, Adriana Leon had brought down Kirsty Smith. However, three minutes later, Anna Patten headed in from a set piece to bring the game level heading into half time.
Leon got on the scoresheet as the home side failed to deal with another set piece. Patten won a flick on that fell into the path of the Canadian, who fired home.
Lisa Evans entered the field and scored a sensational goal to bring the tie back level on 80 minutes. Her half-volley nestled in the top corner to set up a ferocious end to the game.
However, it would be the Villans that would go home with all three points, as Daly found the back the net with only minutes to spare with a superb effort.
Skinner says that she was frustrated to see her side come away with nothing from such an improved performance...
It's a difficult result to take
I think if you've watched the game, you would've seen how good of a performance we've put in, but obviously, if you're just looking at the result then that's probably a little bit of a different reflection really. But in terms of how the players applied themselves today, I can't really fault the way that they've gone about the game.
We showed grit, determination and character all the way through
We dominated the ball, we dominated opportunities and we're disappointed that we've let players get free opportunities in terms of couple of set plays. At the end, I think the one that we conceded could have definitely been affected in the build-up if we had just continued to do what we had done all game which was to really get up against them and press with intent and desire - that forced loads of turnovers and opportunities from us but we just didn't quite do it on the edge of the box.
Like I said, it was a good strike from Daly, but I think we could have affected it before we got to that point.
It's disappointing not to come out of it with something
I think we deserved to come away with a point based on the performance overall; it's one of our more complete performances, we've just not finished when we've had the opportunities.
It's like chalk and cheese to compare this game to last weeks. To be honest, we played for 40 minutes last week really, in total. The players are aware of that, and we've spoken about it. We want to be able to deliver essentially what we delivered against Chelsea and Brighton.
When you look at the quality that we've had on the ball today there's loads of positives to take
Obviously, we're disappointed with the result but the way that we're dictating the game, stringing things together and the way that the team is evolving is a really good response, in terms of performance, compared to last week. We started quicker than we did last week, and so there's lessons to be learned week in week out.
As I’ve always said from the start, it takes time, and we started off really well in the league, we got four points on the board, and, make no mistake, we're fighting for points every single week. I think the biggest thing is that we've just got to keep going and believe in the process.
We dominated the game today, it's just about taking those chances when we get them
Lisa's goal was a great strike. We had other opportunities from set plays, one just went a little bit wide, and a good save tipped it onto the bar. We had our chances, but it just comes down to being the best in both boxes, because in the other parts of the pitch, we've dominated the game effectively.
I think we had probably 10 minutes at the start of the second half where they made an adjustment with Nobbs, and we just had to manage that a little bit differently because of the position she was taking up. Once we did that, we were much more aggressive again and got on the front foot and changed the momentum back in our favour.
It's a hard one to take to concede at such a late point in the game because we definitely deserved something out of the game.
With three games this week, the whole squad is important
We need everybody firing on all cylinders. Naturally with a lot of young players, you have peaks and troughs with that in terms of performances and so really, it's an opportunity for some of them to show that they're ready to play in league games. That's a chance that, if they've been training well, they'll get to have on Wednesday.
